Gophers' Andre Hollins: 'I need to help Mathieu more'

Minnesota guard Andre Hollins wipes his eye during the first half of a game against Northwestern in Evanston, Ill., on Sunday, February 16, 2014. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Gophers basketball coach Richard Pitino had little interest in reliving Wednesday's 62-49 loss to Illinois. His team's performance was so disheartening, he couldn't bring himself to make his players watch the video.

"If I could burn it," Pitino said Friday, "I would have."

The Gophers (17-10, 6-8 Big Ten) desperately need to turn that frustration into motivation to pull off an upset Saturday at No. 24 Ohio State (21-6, 6-6). Otherwise, Minnesota's chances for an NCAA tournament appearance will move firmly into unrealistic territory.

"They're barely hanging on," said CBSSports.com's Jerry Palm, a tournament expert whose mock bracket had the Gophers as a No. 12 seed on Friday. "They are my last team in right now. They have zero margin for error."

There were too many careless errors to overcome against the Big Ten's worst team at Williams Arena on Wednesday, when the Gophers committed 15 turnovers as the Illini won for just the second time in 12 games.

Some of the errors were new to Pitino.

Stepping over the line on inbounds plays -- twice -- was, he said, "as odd as I've ever seen." And he was baffled when junior guard and leading scorer Andre Hollins had to dive on the floor a couple of times just to save the ball on the sideline with nobody defending him.

There also was an errant baseline pass from center Mo Walker that two days later still had the coach shaking his head.

"Unfortunately, that will happen to a team once a year," Pitino said. "It kind of happened at the wrong time for us."

Point guard DeAndre Mathieu bailed his team out of a 17-turnover performance last weekend with 18 points in a win at Northwestern. But he picked a bad time for his lowest-scoring performance in a Big Ten game, three points on 1-for-5 shooting and three turnovers against Illinois (15-12, 4-10).

Is there a blueprint on how to stop Mathieu? Pitino hopes not. The junior has averaged nearly 14 points in six conference wins and slightly fewer than nine in eight league losses.

He particularly struggles against opponents that trap him off ball screens. The last time a team trapped as much as Illinois was at Nebraska on Jan. 26, when Mathieu had nine turnovers in an 82-78 loss.

"The (Illinois) big man, he hedged really hard and he was sliding," Mathieu said. "Coach warned me that it could be possible that they would trap ball screens, and they did."

It only makes sense to try to take away the strength of Minnesota's pick-and-roll offense.

Hollins said Big Ten coaches no doubt have scouted the Gophers well by this point. He wants to do a better job of taking the pressure off Mathieu in those situations.

"I just noticed I need to make myself available a bit more," Hollins said. "We're just going to have to adjust a little bit. It starts in practice, coming off the screens and kind of backing up a little bit and then attacking -- getting the ball out in transition and trying to score in other ways."

Hollins has been back for four games since an ankle injury, but he's still favoring his left leg. He admitted Friday that he shies away from driving to the basket and relies too much on his outside shot.

Hollins had 15 points on 4-for-13 shooting against Illinois, including 3 for 11 from three-point range.

"I haven't really gone off my left leg," he said. "I just might be doing that in the back of my mind. That's one of the toughest things to come back from, an injury and trust it like you did before."

The Gophers are fortunate, though, to have Hollins 100 percent healthy for a critical, and difficult, four-game stretch to end the regular season that includes three ranked teams (Ohio State, No. 15 Iowa and 20th-ranked Michigan).

Minnesota did rise to the challenge to finish 2-2 during a four-game stretch against ranked opponents earlier in Big Ten play. That included wins over Ohio State and Wisconsin at home. But both teams were suffering through losing streaks at the time.

"It's great to have these games at the end of the season because it's crunch time," Hollins said. "These are three NCAA tournament-locked teams, so what more can you ask for to be playing your best basketball at the end of the year before the Big Ten Conference (tournament), before people are making decisions on which postseason tournament you play in?"